We've all been there. We arrive at the designated party house with our napkins practically tied at our throats and our hands wrapped around the flatware, only to discover a turkey that is hours away from the carving board.

To stave off the hunger pangs, we plunge into the relish tray - and woe to the cook who doesn't have a relish tray on the holiday menu.

Master gardener Sheila Hillberry offers her guests a cornucopia of relishes, both sweet and sour.

She puts together a relish tray with whatever pickles she has on hand plus raw carrots, celery, broccoli, kohlrabi, radishes or peppers.

But it's the pickles she has in her pantry that guests go for, specifically her homemade bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, refrigerator dill pickles and pickled beets.

"I've pickled peppers, but I'm not excited about how they turned out. They're OK, but I'm still working on them," she said.

From her garden, she has decided to pickle her crop of jalapeno peppers, because she believes in variety and it also offers a new challenge.

"It's my next project," she said.

Her husband, Joe, even gets into the act by making pickled beets.

They are a prominent part of the Hillberrys' relish tray. Not only that, if you can't find fresh beets at the farmers markets, he has a recipe using canned beets that tastes as good.

"It's the sweet and sour taste that makes them a hit. Everybody likes them," she said.

Influenced by her mother's pickle-making, Hillberry set out on a quest to make her own pickles, including the dills she loved.

"I really liked dills, so I had to figure out how to do it," she said.

A favorite recipe came from her sister-in-law, Judy Stuehrenberg, whose pickles were tasty, sharp and crisp.

"I found out I had been canning mine too long - basically cooking them too long and they turned out flabby," she said.

As for the other dishes on her holiday table, Hillberry also suggests giving up marshmallows on the sweet potatoes and using a layer of apples, cinnamon and sugar.

She also likes to cook a deep orange squash such as buttercup, butternut or hubbard. She then peels and mashes the flesh, adds salt, pepper and butter to the squash and puts it into a casserole dish.

Cook sliced apples with cinnamon sugar in the microwave until they are tender, and then layer them over the squash. Put in the oven until heated through, Hillberry said.

"I think you could use apple pie filling for a topping in a pinch. I've also done this with sweet potatoes," she said.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.